5 ms·

What's the opposite? I feel like I'm smarter than everybody else here (big 5 tech). Including Principal engineers, CEOs and VPs. I'll talk to some random engine

by nambit 8y ago

What's the opposite? I feel like I'm smarter than everybody else here (big 5 tech). Including Principal engineers, CEOs and VPs. I'll talk to some random engineer who might impress me once in a while but for the most part, there's a lot of smart people but there's a lot of dumb people. I consider myself near the top. I know this might feel like /r/iamverysmart but I'm self aware enough to know that what I feel is not necessarily the truth. How do I combat this feeling of superiority?

programbreeding 8y ago
Have you ever taken a personality test, like the Myers-Briggs type indicator? I'm not saying that stuff is 100% true but it gave me extreme insight about myself. And being able to read about me on paper has helped me change a lot of things that I didn't like about myself. There are 101 places you can take the test but I know 16personalities is free and they haven't spammed me.
matte_black 8y ago
Prove it and erase the doubt once and for all. Too many people try not to feel superior but secretly feel deep down if they tried to prove it they would come out superior, and so they keep a subconscious sense of superiority under a veil of humility. You will either discover you were not as great as you thought or you actually are the best. There’s no other way.
- soVeryTired 8y ago
  Exactly. We tend to judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. Similarly, we tend to judge others' intelligence by their achievements, but we judge our own by what we could do.
jonnybgood 8y ago
> How do I combat this feeling of superiority? Whether you think it’s the truth or not, nobody cares. People care about results. If you’re not producing superior results relative to your peers, then you’re not superior to anything. This should go without saying.
mseebach 8y ago
"Smart" isn't a single-dimensional space where you're either smarter or dumber than someone else. You're probably a lot smarter about your domain than anyone else, including top brass. The trick is that those other people operate in different domains in which "smart" looks a bit different. The antidote is humility. Genuinely and in good faith assume that other people can teach you something. Get out of the habit of asking yes/no questions where you define the premise (except transactional interactions), ask how, what etc. You'll quickly meet people who are smart in domains you barely knew existed.
3pt14159 8y ago
File a non-BS patent for something you invent and see it awarded. Found a $100m corporation. Win a nobel prize. Become a household name author. Smart is a spectrum and ego is the enemy if your goal is true greatness. Otherwise you’re just going to be stuck feeling smug that you’re in the 1% when there is this whole other level you could be operating in if you stopped feeling so good about yourself.
candu 8y ago
The opposite would be the Dunning-Kruger effect: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect There's also the (closely related) illusory superiority effect (i.e. "everyone's an above average driver"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority Consulting disabused me of this mindset pretty quickly. As I took on tasks outside my expertise (e.g. project management, contract negotiation, marketing, devops, etc.), I had direct proof that said expertise was far more limited than I'd realized. I might be good at engineering (and even there, I've gained more of an appreciation for where my skillset starts and ends), but there's a lot I don't know. Aside from that: talk to people outside your field, and take the time to deeply listen. Nearly everyone I talk to, whether they're a field biologist, a welder, a sommelier, a lawyer, or an art history expert, takes something for granted that I have no idea about. In many cases, I've been surprised by how deep and interesting knowledge outside my field can be, and I've been forced to re-evaluate my earlier belief that engineers are somehow superior to other walks of human life. For instance: did you know that humans exhibit marked sex differences in olfactory perception? [1] I learned this from a scientifically-minded wine expert on the bus from Montréal to Toronto. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about: people know things you can't imagine. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/
francoisdevlin 8y ago
Find harder and harder problems, and keep doing that until the problems are tougher than you. Failing is okay. It'll give you some perspective, and you'll meet some people at least as smart as you on the way. Then wait until you have kids, and you'll realize how out classed you can be :-)
rb808 8y ago
Deliver useful stuff. What big applications have you really delivered that were loved by users and still work well many years later? Until you've done that you haven't proved you're good. When you try you'll find out its more difficult than you think. If you achieve that you could really be better than the people you work with.
solarkraft 8y ago
Are you actually more productive than these people? Because otherwise being smarter than them isn't worth that much.

by nambit 8y ago

programbreeding 8y ago

Have you ever taken a personality test, like the Myers-Briggs type indicator? I'm not saying that stuff is 100% true but it gave me extreme insight about myself. And being able to read about me on paper has helped me change a lot of things that I didn't like about myself. There are 101 places you can take the test but I know 16personalities is free and they haven't spammed me.

matte_black 8y ago

Prove it and erase the doubt once and for all. Too many people try not to feel superior but secretly feel deep down if they tried to prove it they would come out superior, and so they keep a subconscious sense of superiority under a veil of humility. You will either discover you were not as great as you thought or you actually are the best. There’s no other way.

soVeryTired 8y ago
Exactly. We tend to judge other people by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. Similarly, we tend to judge others' intelligence by their achievements, but we judge our own by what we could do.

jonnybgood 8y ago

> How do I combat this feeling of superiority? Whether you think it’s the truth or not, nobody cares. People care about results. If you’re not producing superior results relative to your peers, then you’re not superior to anything. This should go without saying.

mseebach 8y ago

"Smart" isn't a single-dimensional space where you're either smarter or dumber than someone else. You're probably a lot smarter about your domain than anyone else, including top brass. The trick is that those other people operate in different domains in which "smart" looks a bit different. The antidote is humility. Genuinely and in good faith assume that other people can teach you something. Get out of the habit of asking yes/no questions where you define the premise (except transactional interactions), ask how, what etc. You'll quickly meet people who are smart in domains you barely knew existed.

3pt14159 8y ago

File a non-BS patent for something you invent and see it awarded. Found a $100m corporation. Win a nobel prize. Become a household name author. Smart is a spectrum and ego is the enemy if your goal is true greatness. Otherwise you’re just going to be stuck feeling smug that you’re in the 1% when there is this whole other level you could be operating in if you stopped feeling so good about yourself.

candu 8y ago

The opposite would be the Dunning-Kruger effect: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect There's also the (closely related) illusory superiority effect (i.e. "everyone's an above average driver"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority Consulting disabused me of this mindset pretty quickly. As I took on tasks outside my expertise (e.g. project management, contract negotiation, marketing, devops, etc.), I had direct proof that said expertise was far more limited than I'd realized. I might be good at engineering (and even there, I've gained more of an appreciation for where my skillset starts and ends), but there's a lot I don't know. Aside from that: talk to people outside your field, and take the time to deeply listen. Nearly everyone I talk to, whether they're a field biologist, a welder, a sommelier, a lawyer, or an art history expert, takes something for granted that I have no idea about. In many cases, I've been surprised by how deep and interesting knowledge outside my field can be, and I've been forced to re-evaluate my earlier belief that engineers are somehow superior to other walks of human life. For instance: did you know that humans exhibit marked sex differences in olfactory perception? [1] I learned this from a scientifically-minded wine expert on the bus from Montréal to Toronto. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about: people know things you can't imagine. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221136/

francoisdevlin 8y ago

Find harder and harder problems, and keep doing that until the problems are tougher than you. Failing is okay. It'll give you some perspective, and you'll meet some people at least as smart as you on the way. Then wait until you have kids, and you'll realize how out classed you can be :-)

rb808 8y ago

Deliver useful stuff. What big applications have you really delivered that were loved by users and still work well many years later? Until you've done that you haven't proved you're good. When you try you'll find out its more difficult than you think. If you achieve that you could really be better than the people you work with.

solarkraft 8y ago

Are you actually more productive than these people? Because otherwise being smarter than them isn't worth that much.